A. Technical Field
The present invention pertains generally to data processing, and relates more particularly to user contacts list management.
B. Background of the Invention
A user contacts list is a common feature provided to users of a wide variety of electronic communication systems such as email systems, instant messaging (IM) systems, mobile telephones, and online gaming systems. A user contacts list is a list of screen names representing the set of people with whom a particular user communicates via the system. Each screen name on the list is associated with an electronic address by which the person having that screen name can be located within the electronic communication system network. A typical use for a contacts list is to provide quick and efficient connectivity between the owner of the contacts list and any contact that the owner selects from the list. For example, a cell phone user may bring up and dial the telephone number of a contact by selecting the contact's screen name from a contacts list displayed on the cell phone.
It is common for a contacts list to store additional information for each contact; the types of additional information may be specific to the kind of electronic communication system providing the contacts list feature. For example, an email system “address book” contacts list may include a contact's business and residence telephone numbers and addresses in addition to the contact's email addresses. In some systems, personal data about a contact may be stored in the contacts list, such as the contact's preferences or affiliations.
Because each contacts list may grow over time to include a large number of entries, most electronic communication systems also provide support for contacts list management and persistent storage. Contacts list management may include methods that facilitate the addition and removal of contacts and their associated data, as well as methods for organizing the contacts in a list. A contacts list owner often may create special purpose contacts lists from subsets of the contacts to facilitate context-dependent communication sessions among groups of interested users.
Since the typical electronic communication system user accesses the system via a client platform that has limited computing and storage resources (such as a cell phone, PDA, or gaming console), it is important for the electronic communication system to provide hosted centralized support for contacts list management and persistent storage. This insures that an electronic communications system user will be able to access contacts quickly and efficiently from whatever client device is being used.